Drawing Aliens?

If you've looked through my portfolio, there is something you'll notice. I enjoy drawing cute things. Cute kids. Cute animals. If it makes you say "aweee", or "how sweet!"  then I want to draw it. Working on a science fiction graphic novel doesn't necessarily fit into the "cute" category, which means I have to really go outside of my comfort zone for this project. Here you'll find evidence of my current struggles to draw something that fits into a science fiction movie. I am definitely down for the challenge.
My buddy, Anastasios Gionis used to work with me as a character designer for The Rugrats. He currently works as a creature and character modeler for Blizzard. I think I need to study more of his work in order to get the feel of how to make something creepy and other worldly. I imagine he felt as comfortable drawing babies in diapers as I do drawing aliens.
In my quest to deconstruct the method of drawing aliens, I came across a method which utilizes photo manipulation and the symmetry tool. I figured that if I used a sort of scribble method to draw humanistic type forms I might be able to come up with something unique. Using the "symmetry" tool in Clip Studio Paint allowed me to create a sort of strange doodle where I could create characters that I wouldn't normally think to create.

Now, starting off, I knew that this particular alien was going to be tall, lean and extremely intelligent. As far as what it would look like, I had no idea. So once I drew these, I was able to start seeing faces and shapes that I could push into a direction and turn into something viable. The video below shows how I created the side and 3/4 turns on the final design I ended up creating.

While working on the front view of the design, I had to be mindful of what the profile and 3/4 view of the character would also look like, which means I had to think in terms of 3 Dimensional form and space. I didn't think the body would protrude as much in the beginning but it started to take on an ant-like type abdomen. Cool! I never would have started out with that idea, but that's where I ended up.
So, one alien race down, and one more to go. 
The next alien race will be the opposite- short, squat, and not so bright. Should be fun!